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deposited Ivy’s meager luggage into the back of his car. Either she wasn’t planning to stay long or she really was a packing expert. He shut the trunk and opened her door.
    Her heels clicked a slow rhythm against the pavement as she walked toward him, swaying her hips in a slow-motion runway strut. “And they say chivalry is dead.” She stepped in front of him and tipped her glasses. “Well, they haven’t met you, have they, Mr. Knight?”
    He swallowed, annoyed at his body’s response.
    See her .
    The whisper caught Davis off guard. See her? How could anyone not see her? She was a woman everyone noticed, especially men. Yet on the tail end of his thoughts came the echo of words spoken long ago.
    “You see things the rest of us don’t. It’s an important gift.”
    His father’s words.
    Unsure what to do with them, Davis walked around the back of his Jeep and climbed behind the wheel. The engine rolled over a couple of times before coming to life.
    “So, are you Marilyn’s gofer, or do I flatter myself into thinking you offered to come get me? Since you’re a fan and all.”
    “Marilyn had to be at the boutique. She asked me to give you a ride.” He backed out of the parking space, pulled onto the road, and turned north. The silver cross hanging from his rearview mirror swayed and fractured a beam of sunlight.
    Ivy clucked her tongue. “First Esme, now you.”
    “Who’s Esme?”
    “Some old lady on the plane who kept talking about the ‘good Lord.’ ” Ivy touched the necklace. “It’s an interesting choice of car décor.”
    Davis looked at her sideways. “Are you a believer?”
    “A believer in what—God?”
    “What else?”
    She gave the necklace one more turn and brought her hand into her lap. “There’s a whole arsenal of what-elses.”
    “Like?”
    “Money. Fame. Beauty. Buddha.” She ticked each one off on her fingers.
    “Is that what you believe in—a man?”
    “Jesus was a man.”
    He couldn’t help it. He laughed. Young Ivy, the religious philosopher. “Fully man and fully God. A great mystery of the faith. I might be wrong, but Buddha never claimed to be God, did he?”
    “Your point?”
    “My point is that it seems silly to worship somebody who’s a fallible human—like me and like you.”
    Her forehead puckered.
    The tiny crease had him looking closer. He wanted to know what it meant. “Are you really a Buddhist?”
    “No, I’m not a Buddhist. But I hung out with one once.” She rolled down her window. The wind swirled strands of ponytailed hair around her bare shoulders. “It was very enlightening.”
    The tone of her voice dripped with not-so-hidden meaning. He shifted in his seat. “Are you always like this?”
    “Like what?”
    He searched through his lexicon for the appropriate word and settled on come-hither . It made her mouth turn up into an amused smile. He turned on his blinker and merged onto the highway. Green foliage whizzed past their opened windows as sultry air fanned through the car. The smell of sea salt mingled with the coconut car freshener he’d stuck under his seat before heading to the airport. “Allow me to clarify my initial question. Are you a believer in God?”
    “Yes.”
    His heart lifted. “Really?”
    “Do I think there’s a creator out there somewhere in the cosmos? Yes. Do I think this creator, or God, as you call him or her or it, gives two lollipop licks about little old me? No.” She frowned, as if she’d given away too much and wanted to take it back, then slipped off her shoes and set one perfectly manicured foot on his dashboard. “I don’t generally philosophize with men about religion, Dave. It’s not my area of expertise.”
    She tossed her words like baited hooks. Any other man would bite—ask what her expertise was. Davis avoided the worms. He could guess just fine. “Can I ask you a question?”
    “You just did.”
    “Cute.” He curled his elbow over the black rubber where the window had disappeared,